Experimental psychology approaches psychology as one of the natural sciences, investigates it using the experimental method. The focus of experimental psychology is on discovering the underlying processes behind behavior and the specific nature of mental life. This is in contrast to applied psychology, which employs psychological knowledge to solve real-world problems, and clinical psychology, which aims to treat mental illness with therapy.

Contents

History of Experimental Psychology

Early experimental psychology

While the origins of experimental psychology can be traced as far back as the eleventh century, when Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen) used an experimental approach to visual perception and optical illusions in the Book of Optics in 1021[1] and Abū Rayhān Bīrūnī discovered the concept of reaction time,[2] experimental psychology emerged as a modern academic discipline in the 19th century when Wilhelm Wundt introduced a mathematical and experimental approach to the field and founded both the first psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany and the structuralist school of psychology[1]. Other early experimental psychologists, including Hermann Ebbinghaus and Edward Titchener, included introspection among their experimental methods.

In the latter half of the twentieth century, the phrase "experimental psychology" has shifted in meaning due to the expansion of psychology as a discipline and the growth in the size and number of its sub-disciplines. Experimental psychologists use a range of methods and do not confine themselves to a strictly experimental approach, partly because developments in the philosophy of science have had an impact on the exclusive prestige of experimentation. In contrast, an experimental method is now widely used in fields such as developmental and social psychology, which were not previously part of experimental psychology. The phrase continues in use, however, in the titles of a number of well-established, high prestige learned societies and scientific journals, as well as some university courses of study in psychology.

Methodology

Experiments

The complexity of human behaviour and mental processes, the ambiguity with which they can be interpreted and the unconscious processes to which they are subject gives rise to an emphasis on sound methodology within experimental psychology.

Criticism

Critical and postmodernist psychologists conceive of humans and human nature as inseparably tied to the world around them, and claim that experimental psychology approaches human nature and the individual as entities independent of the cultural, economic, and historical context in which they exist. At most, they argue, experimental psychology treats these contexts simply as variables effecting a universal model of human mental processes and behaviour rather than the means by which these processes and behaviours are constructed. In so doing, critics assert, experimental psychologists paint an inaccurate portrait of human nature while lending tacit support to the prevailing social order. [How to reference and link to summary or text]